The changes in the Leaving Certificate exam Timetable

So another Social Irish Institution, bends and changes to the needs of our educational customers.Minister Mary Hanafin (T.D.), has decided after listening to the responses from students from the last Leaving Certificate exam, to change the timetable for the first three days.

English, Maths & Irish will now be spread over the whole exam period and this move will mean that some 156,000 students will benefit from this measure. It was said yesterday on Mary Wilson's show that only 90 students will be affected by the new timetable, in that they will have the combination which will happen on the first three days.

All I can think of is, well it never did me any harm, but I don't deny that stress levels in those first three days go off the scale! This is a good measure and sure to appeal to those new voters who will come on stream in time for the Local Elections in 2009. Now Mary all you have to do, is ensure that you get them all on the Electoral register.

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Revised Leaving Cert timetable will ease writing burden

Seán Flynn, Education Editor

The huge writing burden on Leaving Cert students in the first week of the exam will be eased from next summer.

The new timetable will result in many of the heavier writing subjects being spread out over the course of the exams, instead of being "frontloaded" into the first few days.

Students, for example, will no longer be asked to take two "heavy" papers like geography and business on the one day.

In another change, each of the two papers in Irish, English and maths will be taken on different days.

The reforms were pushed through by the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, who has been critical of the intolerable burden placed on students in the first week of the exams.

However, the Minister has been forced to abandon her plan for a two-tier Leaving Cert, which would have seen English Paper 1 (featuring the essay and comprehension questions) taken on a Saturday morning in May. School managers claimed this would have put huge new pressures on schools.

Despite this setback, Ms Hanafin said the "new revised timetable is the most significant and student-centred reform of the exams timetable in decades".

Under the new timetable, most students will get at least one half-day without any exam in the first week

Students taking both exams on the first day will also have their time spent in the exam hall shortened by 50 minutes, compared with recent years when the two English papers were taken.

Last night Ms Hanafin said: "While exams are always a test and an acceptable level of stress is a normal part of any testing procedure, I think the new timetable is very student-friendly."

Source & Contd:Irish Times